Hulu on Tuesday released a its long-rumored iOS application for the iPhone and iPad, but the free software requires a $9.99-per-month subscription to Hulu Plus, currently available as a "limited preview."

"Hulu Plus is not a replacement for Hulu.com," the company said on its official blog Tuesday. "Hulu Plus is a new, revolutionary ad-supported subscription product that is incremental and complementary to the existing Hulu service. For almost all of the current broadcast shows on our service, Hulu Plus offers the full season. Every single episode of the current season will be available, not just a handful of trailing episodes."

Subscribers have access to back seasons and full runs of "some of TV's greatest shows," including episodes of The X-Files, Arrested Development, Law and Order: SVU, Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Roswell, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives.

Users must go to hulu.com/plus and request an invite to the Hulu Plus service. The free software (iTunes link) is available for both iPhone and iPad, and allows users to watch over both Wi-Fi and 3G.

Features of the software, according to Hulu, include:
Watch every current season episode of top TV shows from ABC, Fox, and NBC like Family Guy, Modern Family, Glee, 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, The Office, The Simpsons, Greys Anatomy, and more.
Enjoy full series runs or back seasons of classic shows like The X-Files, Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Desperate Housewives, Roswell, Miami Vice, Angel, Saturday Night Live, Law and Order: SVU, Ally McBeal, Xena, Quantum Leap, My So-Called Life, and more. Thousands of episodes from hundreds of titles.

Enjoy up to 720p HD resolution with multi bitrate support for an optimized viewing experience for your screen resolution and network connection speed.
Search and browse for shows and videos directly from your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
Resume play from where you left off on other Hulu Plus devices including your computer and select mobile phones, internet-connected TVs, and Blu-ray players.
Manage your queue directly from your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
Subscribers can also access a free application on certain Internet-connected Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players, and Hulu said that more avenues to watch Hulu Plus subscriptions are coming in the future.

"This is just the first step in our mission to bring you TV wherever you are," the company said. "We are already hard at work on porting Hulu Plus to other devices and platforms, with PlayStation 3 coming soon. But thats a story for another day."

Rumors of a pay-only service available for the iPad first surfaced in February. The Hulu Plus name was outed by The Los Angeles Times in May.

Streaming content came to the iPad at launch, with iOS applications from ABC and Netflix. The ABC player provides shows like "Desperate Housewives" for free, with ad support.

The ABC application and its lack of a subscription reportedly caused concern for Hulu. In April, it was reported that Hulu CEO Jason Kilar "desperately" tried to convince ABC not to release its iPad software.

Are you kidding? The cost compared to other sources is going up radically.

I'm not going to presume to say that the flash solution will work perfectly on Android phones, but if it is workable their cost will be zero while iPhone users will be spending $10 a month and also $10 per gigabyte above the first two.

It would appear you can't watch regular Hulu content ("Hulu Minus?") with the iOS app, right? If so, that really sucks.

The Hulu Plus service seems competitively priced against NetFlix. I'm not going to subscribe but not because I have a moral objection to a subscription that includes ads. It's just that if I do need to catch up on a show I can still use the free service from Hulu.

Are you kidding? The cost compared to other sources is going up radically.

I'm not going to presume to say that the flash solution will work perfectly on Android phones, but if it is workable their cost will be zero while iPhone users will be spending $10 a month and also $10 per gigabyte above the first two.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevdo

It would appear you can't watch regular Hulu content ("Hulu Minus?") with the iOS app, right? If so, that really sucks.

The Hulu Plus service seems competitively priced against NetFlix. I'm not going to subscribe but not because I have a moral objection to a subscription that includes ads. It's just that if I do need to catch up on a show I can still use the free service from Hulu.

The assumption contained in these posts might lead to disillusionment.
Just because there is free Hulu now, does not mean there always will be.

It would appear you can't watch regular Hulu content ("Hulu Minus?") with the iOS app, right? If so, that really sucks.

The Hulu Plus service seems competitively priced against NetFlix. I'm not going to subscribe but not because I have a moral objection to a subscription that includes ads. It's just that if I do need to catch up on a show I can still use the free service from Hulu.

I'm not going to subscribe because I have just got to watch my pennies.

While I try to build my iPad / iPhone (for when I get an iPhone) app collection by taking advantage of the Free app versions that might unlock one game or offer limited services and "unlock" premium functions and offer more games for pay, along with Apple's "One Click" it is easy for me to get in over my head. Paid apps, subscription here, subscription there, subscription everywhere... newspapers, magazine, tv, movies, songs... can have a Tsunami effect on me when my charge card statement comes due!

Damn "Somebody!"

This is precisely what MS, HP et al eco-system that is wanted by the other major players.

Ten years ago, we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Today we have no Jobs, no Hope and no Cash.

How much so most of pay for TV per month which also includes ads on all but the channels we have to pay extra for just so they can repeat the same limited content over each month?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not keen on ads and don't want to pay for content I can get on a device with the same convenience for free, but their guarantee of having ALL episodes available is a huge plus to making this viable and attractive.

It's always been annoying to start watching a series on Hulu just to have some seemingly random episode not be available or an inconsistent time frame between when an episode becomes available and when it gets yanked.

This really isn't different from Netflix streaming except you'll get TV Shows available much sooner, right? If I am not going to utilize Netflix's mail service how is theirs great and Hulu's bad? Is Netflix streaming ad free?

PS: No Android support, eh?

PPS: I may have to keep my Unlimited iPhone plan after all.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Are you kidding? The cost compared to other sources is going up radically.

I'm not going to presume to say that the flash solution will work perfectly on Android phones, but if it is workable their cost will be zero while iPhone users will be spending $10 a month and also $10 per gigabyte above the first two.

But didn't Adobe state that Hulu.com won't work on mobile phones that run Flash Player 10.1?

But didn't Adobe stated that Hulu.com won't work on mobile phones that run Flash Player 10.1?

Hulu has artificially limited it from playing on mobiles with Flash 10.1 installed. This was originally fixed by altering your User Agent. However, while this technically works on Nexus One it's far from ideal.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Are you kidding? The cost compared to other sources is going up radically.

I'm not going to presume to say that the flash solution will work perfectly on Android phones, but if it is workable their cost will be zero while iPhone users will be spending $10 a month and also $10 per gigabyte above the first two.

Like when Google announces wifi tethering in Android, yet Verizon charges more for it? Or is it how testers of Froyo have reported Hulu not loading when it detects the Android browser? Hulu is charging for their service on mobile devices. This includes Android, flash support or not.

Wow! If you have an Internet enabled tv, iPad, PS3, XBox, or laptop, you can cancel your monthly cable subscription and go with this. I just installed the app on both my iPad and iPhone 4 , and the library looks pretty good - much better than the free version. The HD content is pretty nice, too.

So Hulu gets money from advertising and you pay Hulu money to watch those advertisements and the shows (which have already been paid for when they were broadcast on television)?
Isn't the purpose of advertising to recoup the cost of the shows?

Are you kidding? The cost compared to other sources is going up radically.

I'm not going to presume to say that the flash solution will work perfectly on Android phones, but if it is workable their cost will be zero while iPhone users will be spending $10 a month and also $10 per gigabyte above the first two.

I've read that hulu is blocked on Android now. There is more content available on hulu plus though, so even if hulu does work on android with flash, a subscription to hulu plus would still give you access to more content. You're not paying $10 a month to use Hulu on the iPhone, you are paying $10 a month to use a better version on Hulu that also works on the iPhone.

So Hulu gets money from advertising and you pay Hulu money to watch those advertisements and the shows (which have already been paid for when they were broadcast on television)?
Isn't the purpose of advertising to recoup the cost of the shows?

Do we not do this for cable and satellite TV already?

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I thought the reason for having a subscription service is to avoid having ads? They don't show commercials on HBO or any good cable movie channel, I don't like Hulu forcing ads on people who are paying. However, it is still a welcome service and yet another reason to buy an iPad or iPhone. Netflix cost most people over $14-20/month and have to wait for most content to be mailed to you, so I guess $10/month for anytime anywhere access is worth it.

Can only sign up for a future invitation to sign up which is not forthcoming today and must be applied for only from the Hulu website and not from the app which only renders a not available yet message with no notice to go to the website.

I thought the reason for having a subscription service is to avoid having ads? They don't show commercials on HBO or any good cable movie channel, I don't like Hulu forcing ads on people who are paying. However, it is still a welcome service and yet another reason to buy an iPad or iPhone. Netflix cost most people over $14-20/month and have to wait for most content to be mailed to you, so I guess $10/month for anytime anywhere access is worth it.

Actually, Netflix is charging me $8.99 per month for my plan. I can have one DVD out at a time and unlimited streaming (although only a subset of their movies are available for streaming).

I agree, however, that charging for an app that still has ads is going to turn a lot of people off. I'd imagine that's another thing we can chalk up to our short-sighted entertainment industry execs.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Is there any way to get high speed broadband without a TV provider. DSL isn't quite fast enough for streaming TV especially not HD.

Most DSL services will go up to 3 or 6 Meg now. Most of the time the bandwidth isn't the issue so much as the compression. Flash based content is usually pretty ugly from a quality standpoint and just as bad from a bandwidth standpoint. A lot of times to you can have an awesome connection but the server you get content from isn't giving you good speeds, then it doesn't matter how fast your DSL or cable internet.

This is why I like the Apple download model vs streaming services like Hulu. It doesn't fill a buffer then stop, it downloads in the background constantly until you got the whole thing.

I think Hulu thinks a bit too highly of their content if they want to charge $10 per month, way to much considering how much of it you can get elsewhere. They'd be better off doing a 1 time $10 app fee, then marking certain content as premium. Could be based on how new the content is or type (TV vs Movie). They could then tell you that with the 1 time purchase you continue to get access to their basic shows but a monthly subscription would give you full access. Definitely the ads gotta go for paid subscribers, super lame!

Netflix cost most people over $14-20/month and have to wait for most content to be mailed to you, so I guess $10/month for anytime anywhere access is worth it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta

Actually, Netflix is charging me $8.99 per month for my plan. I can have one DVD out at a time and unlimited streaming (although only a subset of their movies are available for streaming).

Actually if you read my comment I said "most," that means not everyone but a large number of. So, you and others may not fall under "most," and may pay less money. That one word covered your payment plan, so your first paragraph reply was unneeded as I don't think anyone really cares about your personal chosen payment plan. Have a good day.

Wow, that's ridiculously stupid. I think I'd rather have Netflix at that price. What are they drinking?!

It's only ridiculously stupid if they don't make any money with it. Their up front costs are probably pretty nil. They can make money with relatively few subscribers. Only time will tell if this business model experiment is successful. Keep in mind that the masses don't think like the pseudo nerd wannabes on forums like this one.